The Second Winter (40 page)

“Outside!” Jungmann barked to the soldier. Then to Fredrik, “We’ll be back. Hear? You think you can hide from us, but you can’t, Gregersen, you can’t.”

At the side of the barn, Oskar watched the soldier and the magistrate file from the house. Jungmann and Munk disappeared back into their cars. The soldiers climbed back into the rear of the truck. Metal doors slammed, engines rumbled to life. Exhaust steamed into the roiling air.

By the time Oskar reached the cottage, Fredrik was raging at Polina. She had waited for him to open the trapdoor, then had lowered herself into his hands. Her anxiety was streaming down her face in tears. Fredrik was furious. In another second, he would have grabbed the German boy. He would have had no choice but to finish him. Oskar heard his father’s shouts as he approached the house.
I want you out, tonight, do you understand, tonight!
Oskar slipped as he climbed the front stairs. He clasped the railing, crossed the porch. His arms were still shaking. His muscles were stiff with cold, his legs were clumsy. He yanked open the door. Inside, shadows were shifting on the stairwell wall. He bounded up the stairs to the second floor three at a time.

Fredrik was snarling like an angry dog. Polina had raised her hands to push him away from her, and the farmhand grabbed her forearms, bent her elbows, pulled her forward onto her toes. His fingers dug into her skin.

Oskar slowed at the landing. “What’s going on?” he demanded. The sprint inside had winded him. “Tell me, Father,” he said, raising his voice, “what are you doing?” His nose was dripping, and he wiped his face with the back of his hand. He had brought the cold into the cottage with him.

Polina’s arms were bruising beneath Fredrik’s fingers. “You were wrong to bring her here,” the farmhand said to his son, without taking his eyes from Polina’s.

Oskar ascended the last stair onto the second floor. “Let her go.”

Fredrik snorted. “They know she’s here, they’ll arrest us if she stays.”

Oskar took another step toward his father. “I said, let her go.”

Fredrik gave Polina’s forearms a final squeeze. Her thin bones bent, her face registered the pain. When the farmhand released her, she dropped from her toes back onto her heels, caught herself against the wall. Fredrik turned away — not from her but from his son. “She won’t spend another night in this house,” he said, controlling his voice. This was a statement of fact, no more. He wouldn’t tolerate dissent. “I won’t have it.”

Oskar reached for Polina, pulled her protectively into his arms. His hand slipped under her shirt. The gesture was accidental, but his fingers remembered her skin. “This wasn’t her fault. There’s no reason to blame her.”

Polina pulled away from him. After the terror she had just experienced, she didn’t want to be touched. “Please,” she said. “No —” But in the narrow hallway, there wasn’t anywhere to escape.

When she jostled into Fredrik, the farmhand gave her a little shove, pushed her back into Oskar’s arms. Fredrik sneered at her, not yet able to swallow his anger, and their eyes
connected as Oskar’s hand found her waist again. “There’s no reason to shelter her either.”

“You’re right, Father,” Oskar said. “It’s too dangerous — she can’t stay.”

Polina stiffened, uncertain whether she had heard him correctly.

The capitulation stopped Fredrik. He examined his son. The hallway was dark, lit only by the window in the children’s bedroom. Still, Oskar could read the relief in his father’s eyes. “You understand it’s for the best.”

“If they know she’s here,” Oskar agreed, “they’ll come back.”

“They said as much. It won’t be safe. Not for Amalia. Not for you.”

“So there is no choice, then.” Oskar pulled the girl closer to him. The smell of her hair was so strong that he could taste it. He was gripping her too tight, he knew that he was when he felt her ribs flex beneath his fingers. But he couldn’t let her go. The realization that he would speak the next words stunned him, but they tumbled from his mouth anyway. “We will leave tonight.”

Fredrik’s brow creased. He met Oskar’s gaze as he considered his words. “You, too?” He wanted to make certain that he had understood what his son was telling him.

Polina twisted away from the tall, bony boy. “This is your home, Oskar.” She clasped his arm, tried to confront him. “You know you can’t just leave —”

Oskar ignored her. His eyes hadn’t left his father’s. He didn’t really mean to leave, did he? The threat had slipped out so impulsively. Now the words were uttered, though, he recognized their truth.
He was going to leave this house with Polina, and he was going to leave it tonight
. “We’ll leave Denmark,” he said.

“Where?” Fredrik asked. It wasn’t really a question, and the word wasn’t spoken in disbelief. He simply wanted his son to lead him to the next step of this discovery. “Where will you go?”

“To America,” Oskar said.

Fredrik nodded slowly. He had heard that this was where the Jews would go, too, when they escaped the Nazis. To America.

“I’ll take the money,” Oskar said.

Again, his father nodded.

“It will be enough to get us to America, and once we’re there, it will be enough to keep us both safe, at least for a while.”

Fredrik gazed at his son. “This is something you’ve thought about?”

Oskar’s eyes dropped. The audacity of his declaration had stolen his breath.

“Oskar?” Fredrik reached for his shoulder. “I’m not saying I don’t understand. But you’re a fool if you think you will make her happy.” He gave the shoulder a squeeze. He wanted to seize his son’s attention. “Eh? You hear me?” He tightened his fingers until Oskar raised his eyes again. “You’re a fool if you think you’ll find more than a minute of happiness with her.”

Oskar tried to shrug his father’s hand off him, but the man’s grip was too strong. “I’m in love with her, Father,” he managed.

“You think so?” Fredrik’s lips formed a smile that his eyes didn’t share. “You can’t even see her, Oskar. You think you can? You’ll never be able to. Eh?”

“And
you
can see
me
so well?” Oskar tried again to wrest his father’s hand off him. “You think you know me well enough to tell me how I feel now?”

“Who is she to you? Eh? Think about it, Oskar. All you see when you look at her is what you want to see.”

“Isn’t that the way it always is?”

Fredrik shook his head. He had no answer to this.

“I tell you I love her, Father.” The next words, Oskar had to force from his mouth. “She loves me, too.”

Fredrik raised his other hand to Oskar’s other shoulder and squared him in front of him. “Is that what you think? Eh?” When Oskar turned away from him, he gave his son a small shake. “If that’s what you think, then you’re an even bigger fool than I thought.” He tried to find Oskar’s eyes but couldn’t. His son’s chest, he noticed, was still heaving. “She’s been beaten, Oskar. Don’t you remember that stray you tried to feed? She’ll draw blood if you get too close, just as surely as that bitch did. Oskar?” He waited for the boy to lift his eyes, but Oskar only glanced at him. Fredrik studied him, and the house fell still. “But I understand — I can’t say I don’t.” At last, the farmhand let go of his son. His fingers slid from his arms. He could feel Polina’s eyes on him, but he avoided her. “Come downstairs with me, why don’t you?” he said to Oskar. “Let the girl pack her things. Have a drink with me at least before you leave.”

Oskar mastered his breathing. Was this really happening? His words rang in his head.
We will leave tonight —
He had spoken rashly. In anger at his father, in relief after the soldiers had left the house. But his father was taking him seriously — his father was ready to let him take the money and go. And if he didn’t go, if he stayed, it was Polina who would have to leave, on her own. And then what would become of her?

“Yes,” he heard Polina say, “have a drink with your father, Oskar. It is better for you to talk this over, it is better if the two of you think about this some more.”

“Okay,” Oskar said. He tried to smile. “We’ll have a drink. Then Polina and I will go.”

Fredrik found his son’s shoulder again. This time, it wasn’t to demand his attention. He had the impression that he had
never touched his son before, and now that he was touching him, he simply didn’t want to let go. Like Oskar, he hadn’t seen this moment coming. But perhaps it had been inevitable. Perhaps it was for the best. “Now,” he said. “Okay. I will go downstairs and set up a few glasses. If you’re leaving tonight, you had better see about your things, too. Come down, join me when you’re ready.” He gave the shoulder a final clasp, then turned away. His head still felt giddy after the narrow miss with Jungmann and the soldiers. His footsteps were slow and heavy on the stairs.

Oskar followed Polina into the bedroom. He ripped the sheet from the ceiling, then sat down on his mattress and leaned his elbows on his knees and watched her get dressed in the silvery light filtering through the window. The wind gusted against the cottage, the roof thatch shivered above their heads. His father was right. This girl, he realized — this creature with amber hair and ivory skin and narrow hips and breasts as hard as unripe fruit, this child who now owned his innocence — was a stranger.

Downstairs, Fredrik pulled the last whiskey bottle from the cupboard. There were barely two glasses in it. He uncorked the bottle, lifted it to his lips. The whiskey burned his tongue, warmed his chest. He set the bottle down, thinking to save the rest, grabbed two tumblers from the shelf. Then, impulsively, he lifted the bottle again, took another swallow. The alcohol cut a hole in his stomach, flowed through his veins. A memory of Jungmann inside the house rekindled his rage. His hands tightened into fists. Something had to be done about him, because
he
was the problem. Not Polina. Jungmann, the Germans. He sat down at the table. His jaw was clenched. He
slipped his hand into his pocket, found a pill, swallowed it with another mouthful of whiskey.

By the time Oskar stepped through the doorway, Fredrik was finishing the bottle. He lowered it from his mouth, sat it onto the table at an angle, let the neck roll back and forth between his finger and his thumb. “It’s Jungmann,” he said. “Jungmann and Munk. They’re the ones who need to go.”

Oskar stepped past his father to the cupboard, searched for another bottle, came up dry. “I’ll go to the Nielsens’,” he said. “I’ll see if they’ll spare us a bottle. After all, it’s New Year’s Eve.”

“Is it?” Fredrik asked.

Oskar crossed from the kitchen to the vestibule. “If they don’t want to give me a bottle,” he said, “I suppose I can buy one from them.”

The pill was hitting Fredrik’s bloodstream with the alcohol, reviving him but disorienting him as well. Perhaps it was the stress from this afternoon, but he hadn’t felt this euphoric in some time. He envisioned the syringe in the drawer in the bathroom. The sores on his arms and legs where the needle had punctured his skin ached. His eyes glistened. “Sure you can,” he said. “We have the money now. Buy one.”

Oskar glanced upstairs as he pulled on his coat. He thought about calling to Polina, but she was fatigued from the ordeal and had decided to lie down for a rest before they started on their journey. There was no point in disturbing her.

From his chair in the kitchen, Fredrik watched his son leave. Upstairs, the girl shifted in Oskar’s bed — her hair was spilling over her face, she was propping herself up on an arm, licking her lips, perhaps she was touching the soft tuft of hair he had seen between her thighs as he was hoisting her into the attic. Outside, Oskar’s footsteps receded. Fredrik waited
until they were gone. Then he stood from the chair. He paused for a moment at the base of the stairs, wavering, then stumbled into the cramped bathroom, shut the door behind him, quietly pulled open the cabinet drawer. The steel and glass syringe glimmered in the dim light.

Fredrik’s hands shook. One foot rested on the toilet. A pant leg was drawn up to his knee. He ran two fingers along the side of his calf, then decided upon a puncture hole that had scabbed and was nearly healed. Gritting his teeth, he clasped the steel syringe, slid the needle’s hollow point into the wound. The pain was sharp, but in the very same instant it was forgotten. He stood upright. The pant leg dropped back onto the top of his boot. He spread his hands out flat on the edge of the sink, stooped forward, closed his eyes. From the moment he had first seen her, he had known that the girl would be his. He had tried to forget her, but to no avail. And now she was about to disappear. An image of her face began to draw itself in his mind. The cold from the porcelain radiated up his arms. The amphetamine gathered itself into a tiny ball in his chest, then made itself tinier still, centered itself like a chunk of ice in his heart. When the small, poisonous ball detonated, the explosion obliterated everything else. Fredrik felt himself sliding backward. He struggled to hang on to the picture of Polina but couldn’t. The room darkened, and it slipped through his fingers like a wisp of smoke as he blacked out. Then he was opening his eyes again, sitting up on the floor, wondering how long he had been unconscious. He took hold of the doorknob, pulled himself to his feet, stumbled from the bathroom into the hall.